Three Months Later

May 6, 2017

I finished another painting! Like three months ago, haha. And now, it lives in a folder on a shelf.

I’ve been going through all of my art supplies and looking through all of my canvases and watercolor paintings these past couple of weeks as we’ve been organizing for the move, and oh gosh, I have so much. Which is why in January I got all motivated and set up an Etsy shop one week while Thane was off gallivanting somewhere in Eastern Europe, so that maybe these watercolors wouldn’t just sit in a folder. I wrote about the shop here, posted it to Facebook once, and have not personally been back on Etsy to look at it since, hahaha. Is it still up and running? I guess so, but I’m really not sure.

I never got around to listing this piece at all, but I’m actually totally okay with that because (confession) I really just want to keep it. All of them! I want to hoard all of them.

Sometimes I think that if I spent half as much time marketing as I did painting- which wouldn’t amount to much at all since basically all I do is diapers and dishes- I might actually be like “a real artist” or something. But, I’m not good with sales and I’m coming to terms with the fact that even though the thought of turning all of my sporadically-practiced hobbies of into mini-money-makers is great in theory, the business side of it just isn’t my cup of tea. I pretty much loathe trying to sell anything to anyone, and even if I didn’t loathe it, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to commit to it. Cause any kind of sales, even the part time from home kind, take time.

Sometimes it’s tempting to want to have these little side-gigs because, to be honest, it sounds a little more intriguing to be able to call myself a painter or a photographer or a blogger or a ______ (fill in the blank with whatever might be striking my fancy that month), than just a mom. And yes, these creative things are fun and have value and I really, really enjoy doing them when I can. But let’s be honest….at four kids in, a mom is what I am. And it’s all I’ll really be for a good, long while. And I’m happy about that! Really happy. Because they are forever, and all of the rest isn’t.